Foreign policy sometimes demands immediate reaction to unforeseen events. After the tragedy of September 11th Tony Blair spoke for the party and the country in expressing solidarity with the victims. But members could help to shape broader trends, if there was a will to let them. Instead, decisions are taken at the top, with the National Policy Forum able at best to water down the language.
Iraq still hits the headlines. Last year’s conference agreed a resolution generally understood as requiring explicit United Nations endorsement, but with enough wiggle room to invade anyway. This year, 60 percent of constituency delegates voted against debating a formal motion, and an emergency resolution from the RMT union was ruled out of order.
The public conference session was managed successfully, with criticism from Alice Mahon, Jeremy Corbyn, the RMT, the GMB and the TGWU, but constituency speakers swinging behind the government. Perhaps the widest support went to two MPs, David Wright and Peter Pike, who had voted to give Hans Blix’s inspectors more time, but now felt we must move on.
A fair number of people think the troops should sort out the mess before they leave, and there is little appetite for a prolonged inquest.
But behind the scenes unease continues. Constituency letters through the year were overwhelmingly opposed to war and, in the private seminar at conference, 14 out of 15 constituency delegates were unhappy with government actions. Some had believed in the dangers posed by Saddam and echoed David Aaronovitch, writing in the Guardian on 29 April 2003: ‘If nothing is eventually found, I – as a supporter of the war – will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US, ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere.’
Jack Straw responded that of course it would be better if we found 10,000 litres of anthrax, leaving the government in a morally dubious position that appears to put saving face above the risk to British troops and Iraqi civilians.
Mission creep is seen in other areas, too, for example in attitudes towards the US national missile defense programme. In 2000, the National Policy Forum and conference agreed to encourage continued support for the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, and valued the strategic stability that it provided. Subsequently the US withdrew from the treaty in order to develop NMD. This is profoundly destabilising. It encourages enemies to build more nuclear weapons to overwhelm the system, and a nation that thinks itself invulnerable could hold the world to ransom.
In January 2001 Tony Blair told the NEC that no decision had been made on allowing the US to upgrade Fylingdales for NMD testing, and the 2001 manifesto said that Britain would encourage consultation with NATO allies on missile defence. But by January 2003 the Americans had the keys to Fylingdales. In February the National Policy Forum considered this fait accompli, with its draft document stating: ‘Systems to defend the UK against ballistic missile attack could also have a role. That is why the government agreed to the request from the United States to upgrade the computer hardware and software at the early warning radar at Fylingdales.’
The Forum managed only to add that technical feasibility, cost and overall impact on security must be considered.
The greatest concern remains the fear that British foreign policy is decided in Washington and not in Downing Street. Members are pro-Europe and pro-United Nations, and they would prefer a Democrat in the White House. The biggest obstacle to putting Iraq behind us is George Bush’s state visit, a crass piece of scheduling that seems, sadly, to sum up the gulf between the leadership and the party on the ground.